Check it out here.

The Guardian have printed a list of trendy bars and clubs to check out in Tokyo. A nice variety of watering holes are featured in the article, and I can vouch for most of them, especially the brew pubs and whiskey bars, although I have yet to try Stand S’s “mojito beer”, which sounds like the contents of my stomach at 2:30AM. (I’ll try it nonetheless- anything for a challenge.) The only place mentioned that isn’t my cup of tea is the Trump Room, where I’m too old and flabby to blend in (and where apparently it is compulsory to wear black and silver, be anemically thin, and not drink anything.) Other than that place, there’s an epic pub crawl to be had!

A nicely-named bar in Sannomiya, Kobe.

Hi, pals. Since this blog seems to get more traffic now than when I was actually writing it, I may as well start posting again. One afternoon a couple of weeks ago, 63,000 people checked out a story I wrote 3 years ago. It’s a bit like everyone buying Amy Winehouse’s records after she died. Well, I’m back from the grave!

I really should overhaul the look of this blog sometime soon, as well. The site is starting to look like some kind of archaic cyber-relic, like Friendster. Anyway, I’ll try updating a few times a week from now on, starting with a random assortment of booze-related bits and pieces below:

First off, the guys at Bridges (a weekly showcase of single content creators and their content) have kindly made a vlog about this very site. Check it out here. Very nice of them!

Next up, a friend of mine sent me a link to this epic list of brew pubs in the Tokyo and Yokohama area. As a lover of lager, ale, and stout, there are plenty of places on the list to help me further expand my gargantuan beer belly. I can definitely recommend Popeye’s in Ryugoku, which has over 70 beers on tap. I go there so often that the beer-bloat makes me comparable to the neighbourhood sumo wrestlers. The Aldgate in Shibuya is another of my regular haunts (they also sell amazing Cornish pasties), and the Thrash Zone is a really welcoming heavy-metal beer bar in Yokohama.

Also, I’ve only just noticed that CNNGO has been publishing lots of informative drinking-related articles in recent months, so I thought I’d post a couple here:
Here’s a helpful piece about the etiquette of drinking in Tokyo bars. The rules must only apply to the up-scale Ginza cocktail bars that I’m too skint to visit, however, because they are routinely broken in the grungy backstreet dives I end up in, where the locals can be seen blithely stripping naked, projectile vomiting, and playing Pop-Up-Pirate on even the rainiest Tuesday night.

And here’s another nice article, featuring three religion-themed watering holes in Tokyo, where you can be served by the likes of Buddhist monks or protestant ladies. I’m particularly keen to visit Yurei Izakaya (“The Ghost Bar”), a morbidly-themed bar in Kichijoji, which has miraculously escaped my attention until now. Their Russian-roulette kushiage skewers (one on each dish is packed with super-intense wasabi) is their claim to fame apparently!

Here are a couple more from CNNGO:
Why Japanese Bartenders Are the World’s Best
Tokyo to Yokohama on a 40-kilometer bar crawl

Read the rest of it here!

This time, more domestic disputes and hangovers.

Read more here!

Tokyo’s balmy summer evenings are perfect for a bit of outdoor beer-imbibing (except when there’s a bloody typhoon like today.) Where better to enjoy it than on the top of a skyscraper, under the stars? (you can’t see actually any stars, but you can achieve the same effect by signing up for an all-you-can drink deal and getting so pissed you hallucinate.)

Craig over at Tokyo Gig Guide has lovingly assembled the ultimate list of Tokyo beer gardens, complete with times, prices, and addresses. I intend to visit many of them, so if you hear of a giant drunken gaijin accidentally plummeting from a skyscraper between now and September, it may well be me.

Here’s the list.

This time the disaster-prone, insecure English teacher, Dave, is horrified to discover he’s getting a new, young room-mate.

Check it out at littleinjapan.com.

There are lots of rib-tickling T-shirts on there as usual! (by which I don’t mean they literally tickle your ribs. I mean they’re side-splitting… and they don’t actually split down the side. I mean they’re hilarious). Here are some of their latest offerings:

This one made me laugh out loud:

…and here’s a drunk-themed one, well-suited for readers of this site:

T-Shitsu T-shirts are all cheap, at less than 3000yen, and the site’s all in English.

Here’s a quote from the site, about their noble goal of bringing people together through the power of wacky T-shirts:

This site is not just about T-shirts.
Its about sparking conversations, merging cultures, breaking down barriers and generally enhancing our fun-loving foreign community in this awesome country.
If our merchandise spreads further then these Japanese shores, so be it.
Put plainly, for one person to say, ‘Woah… where did you get that T-shirt?!’ makes us (and you) happy. Simple.

Check out more T-shirts here.

Last week was father’s day, and numerous beer-related novelty products were flying off the shelves of shops such as Tokyu Hands. My favourite is the Takara Tomy Beer Hour, a device used to make pouring beer cans into glasses easier. You could buy this or, alternatively, you could simply tilt the glass a bit.

Summer is nearly here, the rain is gradually dying down and the rooftop beer gardens are starting to open.
Over the past few years, I’ve often ended up drinking in the sunshine atop the Kudan Kaikan hotel, near Kudanshita subway station (that beer garden is famous for its fetching bunnygirl waitresses), but since the roof of that hotel sadly collapsed during the big earthquake, I doubt there will be much partying going on there this summer. Fortunately, a suitable replacement has been provided in Odaiba by Hooters, who have opened a beer garden at the Grand Pacific Hotel, near Daiba station, for the summer. Until August 31st, it’ll be open daily from 4pm (or 11am on weekends) ’til 10:30.
You can find out more here.

The fun will continue in a couple of weeks, an hour south of Tokyo, in Shonan (self-styled “Miami Beach of Japan), where the wooden beach bars will be erected (and they’re not the only things that’ll be erected, once the bikini-clad hordes of Shibuya girls arrive to sun themselves. Fnarr fnarr!) The beaches of Enoshima, Zushi, Yuigahama (in Kamakura), and Hayama are all good spots for a refreshing beer overlooking the waves. The bars close at 9, at which point you can join the drunken deliquents merrily setting off fireworks on the beach. Even if you’re too skint for the beach bars, you can always grab a six-pack for the 7/11 and park your arse on the sand.

In Zushi, the Otodama Sea Studio beach bar has already opened for business, and will be playing host to various well-known Japanese live acts over the summer, including The Pillows, Garnet Crow, Orange Pekoe, and Ryo the Skywalker, as well as DJs Takkyu Ishino, Tomyuki Tanaka (Fantastic Plastic Machine), Shinichi Osawa, Ken Ishii, and Dex Pistols.

Finally, to make your Japan-based boozing easier, a book has been published called, Drinking Japan: A Guide to Japan’s Best Drinks and Drinking Establishments, by Chris Bunting. It is, by all accounts, an enjoyable and informative read, and I’ll be sure to post a review once I get hold of a copy. At the same time, it may well take a gargantuan dump on my hopes of ever writing a similar book. Ho-hum! I’m off to drown my sorrows at Hooters.